Iceland Rocks

On our last day in Reykjavik, Iceland, we took the Circle Tour into the interior of the island. There is much more to show and tell, but for now here are some closeups of the rock formations, many of which were taken at the site where the North Atlantic tectonic plate meets the Eurasian one.

York: The Mystery Plays

To echo the reactions of many students, I found the York Mystery Plays much more entertaining than I expected. It was a rainy Sunday morning, so I put on my bat coat and topped it off with my oh-so fashionable 3 pound (as in British pound sterling) plastic poncho. Everyone else in the group was much more fashionable.

You can see the carts (scenes/plays) queued up and ready to go.

For the first half of the day I sat by the boom guy who, at times, blocked my view. Moving to catch a better view kept me from petrifying into a middle-aged woman on the lawn. And to be truthful, my sympathies were with him because he held that boom for nearly five hours!

The plays are relatively short and retell many of the Old and New Testament stories. At times the costumes were medieval in style and at other times in current dress.

Here are Adam and Eve in Paradise with the cutest-ever devil. Can you see the serpent puppet he's holding near Eve's head?

Oops! Busted! Time to don some fig leaves!

One of the saddest plays was the Slaughter of the Innocents. Fascist-like bad guys, there's even a black shirt, shoot the babies in their mothers' arms with rifles. I was so moved at that point, I don't have a picture of that scene.

The crucifixion of Christ was another moving scene. I wish I could play my videos for you. The men (and woman) in camos actually raised the cross. Red ribbons mimic blood. 

The Harrowing of Hell was particularly entertaining. The devil was played by a waif-like teen wearing sunglasses and a mike. In fact, the punk-devil-girl was the only one miked throughout the day. That's Jesus in the foreground. We met him walking with his family on the way back to our hotel. The players start to practice in mid-May and the plays are performed every four years.

The plays ended with Judgment Day.

This girl was hoping to be chosen to go to heaven.

Bill and I were not so lucky. We each received a black rose informing us that we would spend an eternity in hell.

Together!

Durham: Botanic Garden

My project while Bill teaches class is to paint a series of watercolors based on pictures I have taken of flowers. I am in serious need of brilliant blue and purple flowers since the pictures I have are not to my liking. Because the Botanic Garden is literally in my backyard here at Collingwood College, I decided to visit it to see if I could find some blue and purple flowers. While it has a few flowers, it is not like Fayetteville's Botanical Garden. Instead, it has that Sherwood-y Forest feel to it, in part due to the hilly topography and the well-established trees.  Here are some pictures from my visit today.

There is a greenhouse that contains both desert and tropical plants. I liked the license plate in this shot.

I have been wondering what all of these black-leafed flowers are. This is a dahlia Bishop of Canterbury. There are other dahlia-Bishop-of plants, including Dover and York. Dover's petals are white, York's yellow, and so forth.

This gives you an idea of the vistas. On my walk I saw sheep, a goat and a bunny, but that particular meadow was closed off to the public.

Bark on a birch tree.

This was taken in the bamboo garden.

Here is one of the sweeping hillsides.

A big old tree.

This piece of sculpture is entitled the "Foxglove Sculpture." I don't know why.

I wish my garden path looked this lush.

The tree in the center appeared to be a dogwood. Spring arrives later here than at home.

Elephant ears?

Wild flowers.

For 4 GBP it was a delightful way to spend the morning.

London: Pairs of free things

London is a mighty expensive town, so I am going to comment on pairs of free things I've received in the past two days.

1. 2 free holes: Yes, I bought a red patent leather belt in Fayetteville, but at the time of the purchase I was wearing rather low-rider jeans. When I put on the belt with my better pants with a belt-line closer to my waist, the belt was too big. Figuring that Harrod's might know of a competent (read, picky hole puncher person), I paid a visit to the Harrod's shoe repairman. Yes, he works in the lower level (read, basement) of the store. When I asked what I owed him, he said, "Nothing." Harrods! Can you imagine that!

2. 2 free flip-through booklets: Bill and I each received a book that allows you to get an animated view of the Rolling Bridge. If you hold the book one way, you see the bridge roll up, and if you hold it the other way, you see the bridge roll down.  More on that later.

3. 2 free piggies: If you're nice with the Romanian clerk at a pastry shop and ooh-aww over the little confection piggies, you might just get one or two.

O2

My blogs are all over the place.  Now I'm heading back to the O2 Arena for some pictures of the site. We were told that the Arena was constructed for the millennium as a gallery.  It was repurposed as an arena but without sufficient restrooms. Well here it is with its tensile roof and outbuildings. Sadly, Andrea Bocelli will be performing here in November, and we won't be here.

Above is one of the buildings that houses restaurants like Cafe Rouge.

Below is a twisted obelisk.

Next is the tensile roof of the arena.

This is a closeup of the chandelier in the lobby of the arena.

This is an inside shot of the dramatic lighting during the Monty Python Reunion.

If you've never been to the O2 Arena, it's really quite easy to reach from London.  Simply take the Jubilee Line southeast to Greenwich.  It's easy, cheap and safe.  

The Ladies at High Tea Horse Around

Billy's girlfriend, Sarah, and her girlfriend, Katie, were in London a few days ago. We decided it would be fun to meet at the Orangery for High Tea.  The Orangery is located in Kensington Gardens a short distance from Kensington Palace where Prince William and Kate live.

It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon, so we sat on the patio covered in lovely gathered awnings.

We had finger sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, jam, delicate and delicious desserts and tea. Afterwards we decided to go for a ride on the nearby carousel.

Sarah found a horse named William and there were Kate and Katie horses, too. Here is the William horse.

Katie is in the foreground, Sarah in the background. 

The three of us sat in the same row which made it a lot more fun.

I had fun and a double-chin, too!

Sarah and her favorite horse.

Katie on the Kate horse.

Afterwards we visited with Bill in our room. 

It was so much fun to have a play date with the girls!

And now for something completely different...well, sort of

For those who don't already know, Terry Jones of Monty Python is a medievalist.  Bill met him some years ago in London at a conference and a friendship was formed.  In fact, not long ago Bill brought him to the UA as a guest speaker.  Now as it so happened, Bill's research week coincided with the reunion of the Monty Pythoners here in London.  For his birthday Bill wanted tickets to the reunion show and was willing to get up at 4:00 am to order them online.  He did so successfully and apparently within the first 45 seconds before the opening night show sold out!  Bill emailed Terry to let him know that we had our tickets and that we were looking forward to the performance.  It was a most delightful surprise when Terry then invited us to a dress rehearsal.

The venue for the dress rehearsal was way-hey on the west side of London at a location that even the cabbie had difficulty locating.  Anyway, despite some meanderings here and there (and some recalculations on the part of the GPS lady) we arrived with time to spare.  Of course the preparations for me hinged on what to wear. I decided to base my wardrobe on that of the young woman in Business Elite who slept next to me on the airport floor and I found a sheer dress/long shirt to go with black leggings.

Here's my little number and the only picture of the rehearsal venue since photography inside was prohibited.

We have never been to a professional dress rehearsal before and had no idea of what to expect.  Guests were offered glasses of wine in the small lobby.  The auditorium was shallow and wide (transverse axis for my architecture friends).  The rows were about as wide as the set design but perhaps only 6 rows deep.  We sat on those banquet-type chairs, ones that aren't particularly comfortable.  Comfort aside, Bill and I got seats in the first row!

There was no comedy warm-up of the crowd, a crowd that seemed to consist of family members and friends of the cast and crew.  I sat next to a lovely "mum" of one of the crew, who was probably in as much awe of the experience as I.  At the start of the show Eric Idle simply came out and reminded us that this was a dress rehearsal and that there could be f@#k-ups (their words, naturally). And yes, there were some.  Graphics played an important role as in the early TV shows.  During the first act, however, there were some "black holes" in the monitor, and half of Eric Idle's moustache came unglued to which he glibly replied, "F@#k it!", before pulling if off.

I was told by "mum" that the set design was the very one that would be taken down and resurrected at the O2 Arena across town for the performances. The set design, although the very same for both venues, reminded me of the street in Roma where the farther you drive from the Vatican the larger, yes larger, the dome appears.  In the intimate auditorium the set design seemed smaller than it did when reassembled in the huge Arena even though it eclipsed the space in the rehearsal hall. Here's a picture of the stage in the Arena.

As you can see (barely), the stage retains the graphic quality of Terry Gilliam's sketches for the television shows.

The absolute best part of attending the rehearsal was to see the show up-close-and-personal.  I could see the cast clearly and even pick out the dancer who came into the restroom before putting on her tights for the show. (We let her cut in line.)

I was afraid that I would be bored/disappointed by seeing a repeat of the show with only a three-day interval.  And in fact, one of the channels in our room aired "And Now for Something Completely Different" the night before we attended the performance at the arena where many of the same bits were repeated.  Skits like "Spam," "the Blue Parrot," and "I'm a Lumberjack" I saw three times in three days.  What I found was that when I knew the punchline I enjoyed the anticipation of it even more.

There was a lot of new material in the show, too, mostly in the form of Broadway-like revues that reminded me of the musical "Anything Goes." Of  course, the lyrics were much naughtier as in "Every Sperm is Sacred", a tune where the Pythoners mock the Catholic Church and where penile-like canons painted like red and white lighthouses shoot confetti sperm into the audience.  That number was followed by a skit where Jones and Palin as a stodgy Protestant couple discuss the use (or as a Catholic should I say "usability") of condoms.  One of my favorite characters both when I was younger and still today is when Terry Jones plays the rather dumpy housewife with nylons rolled up to the knees (and boobs down to the knees, as well).  The Silly Walk was significantly modified from the original.  The new version was incorporated into a dance routine with music that kind of reminded me of Pink Floyd's "Money."

The show ended with an encore sing-along of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."  It's such an infectious tune that one of the party-goers (yes, you can drink at the Arena and carry open containers in public) on the Tube ride home started a sing-a-long of his own.  Buskers in the Tube are also playing it these days.

It was a happy, irreverent show.  Some in the audience dressed as their favorite Monty Python characters and the Pythoners seemed to thoroughly enjoy the crowd's reaction.  As I watched, it occurred to me that so much of the humor I enjoy--from The Daily Show to SNL to The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon--is based on the seemingly silly and absurd skits created by the Pythoners.  So in the end, I'm happy my dad watched the show with me when it first aired and that I could see not one, but two, live performances as a grown-up.